The bird and its band proved a perplexing mystery.

In October 2024, a bird that is exceptionally rare in Maine—a common gull—was spotted at the golf course at the Samoset Resort in…

As we write this on Feb. 17, the Great Backyard Bird Count is in its final hours. We’ve participated and seen some wonderful birds, though like many of you, we were confined to counting from…

A colleague at the Natural Resources Council of…

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine's Second District, circulated the following update from Washington, D.C.

Welcome to my weekly rundown, the latest on what I’ve been working on for…

The following was circulated Feb. 7 from the office of Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine.

I am sending this bulletin to folks throughout Maine to share some important news: The…

A few days ago, on one of the bitterly cold days we have recently endured, we looked out of the kitchen window to see a bird flit past the window and into the open garage. It was likely a…

Sure, they’re common. Some would even say they’re a water-loving version of a pigeon, the way they rush in to feed in droves for handouts of stale bread. Still, on a cold winter day against a…

What bird is more iconic here in Maine than the common loon? In summer, there’s nothing more stirring than hearing the wailing cry of a loon echoing across the still waters of a Maine lake on…

We are fortunate here in Maine that winter brings an abundance of waterfowl, including some species that can’t be seen in many other states. Common eiders make their downy nests on the ground…

Depending on your point of view, the number of new books on birds published each year is either a fabulous blessing or a confusing babble. Maybe a little of both.

We, personally, love to…

This column arrived too late for print in the Jan. 2 issue.

It all started with a discussion of harlequin ducks.

With a few days off at the holidays, we were thinking…

It was New York City or bust for us last week when we did a whirlwind road trip to Manhattan for an overnight to pick up our son who lives there along with his girlfriend and two cats. We arrived…

Thank you to the vandals who added a wooden “Welcome Home” sign to the town line sign bordering Union on Route 17. It brightens up the drive.

Last Tuesday was the planning board hearing…

On Saturday, we celebrated the start of the holiday birding season: the first day of the official National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count (CBC) period! From Dec. 14 through Jan. 5, tens of…

Here in Maine, come winter, most of the smallest birds leave us. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are long gone (although a rare rufous hummingbird has been surviving at a hummingbird feeder in Port…

If you’re reading this column, you probably don’t need any convincing that interest in birds and birding is skyrocketing. Take, for example, the seemingly increasing use of bird-…

All-white birds are not something we see very often in Maine. Egrets are all white, but they’re not exactly “great big,” not even the “great egret.” There are only a few options for what a…

How many Maine people know, we wonder, that there are two species of cormorant that occur regularly in the state? If they do know that both double-crested cormorants and great cormorants occur…

It’s pretty bizarre by any standard: a bird species of the southwestern U.S., Mexico, and the Greater Antilles appearing in numbers in late fall in…

Birders in Rockland had the good fortune a few days ago to discover a very rare bird in Maine: a common gull. Yes, we know that seems like an oxymoron. Gulls of several species here in Maine…

To most birders in the U.S., a roseate tern is a special bird that takes some effort to see. They can be seen regularly in only a few places where they nest in the United States. Roseate terns…

Author’s Note: This column was written from Jeff’s perspective following a recent work-related trip to Newfoundland. 

Ever since Nanny and Grandfather Chase returned from their one…

Another gorgeous September weekend day here in Maine and we were drawn to a peninsula that we haven’t visited much in recent years. We headed over to Thomaston and then drove south past the big…

It’s a cool, early-September evening on the Maine coast. On the point across the water from where we’re standing, tall white pine trees create a light green curtain against the impossibly blue sky…

Life forms that live all around us but that we never (or almost never) detect may be kind of freaky to think about. Viruses, bacteria, prions—those microscopic living (or maybe not really living,…

We wrote last week about our luck visiting Wharton Point in Brunswick as the tide turned and shorebirds of various kinds made themselves visible on the expanding mudflats. Well, someone else was…

A few weeks ago, in early August, we were lucky.

Without having glanced at a tide chart, we happened to stop by Wharton Point in Brunswick just as the tide was receding from its high point…

On cooler, early evenings these August days, we have been out sitting comfortably on our porch, our little black dog happily beside us sniffing the air. We haven’t been using our noses but instead…

On one of the oppressively hot and humid summer days we have been experiencing lately, we had the good fortune to be at the cool, shady camp of brother Andy and sister-in-law Nina on the shore of…

Over the weekend we decided to join in the birding fun that we wrote about in…

We might be far from the tropics, but the temperature sure has felt downright tropical here in Maine (and across much of the nation) over the last few weeks. Maine and much of the country also got…

We may have a recent preoccupation with swifts. They seem to have been finding their way into these columns a disproportionate number of times lately as compared to other birds. But we make no…

June in Maine is when the miracle of new life abounds in birds. Most of the birds that breed in Maine—build nests, lay eggs, nurture their young—do so in June. This year, we have been happy to see…

There are two birds in particular that are so striking, so tropical-looking, that most people think they’re rare here in Maine.

But they aren’t.

In fact they’re quite widespread and…

It may have been an unconscious reaction to last week’s excessive heat, but over the weekend we were drawn to local lakes and marshes to look for birds. It is hard for us to believe, but some of…

Sister-in-law Nina called, breathless, a few weeks ago. While walking the dogs along a quiet road in Georgetown, she was astonished to find a tiny, newly fledged saw-whet owl sitting on the back…

We’ve recently had the opportunity to spend some time in the Big Apple, otherwise known as New York City. There’s a lot going on down in that place – people streaming by on sidewalks everywhere.…

Imagine a place on the Maine coast where your dinner conversation might range from talking with an Indigenous Guardian about the experience of living and working in a remote First Nation in…

There is no doubt that the sight of an all-white, chicken-sized bird with feathered feet walking around on the ground somewhere here on the coast of Maine in spring would make just about anyone…

Over the weekend, we were out doing some errands in Augusta when it occurred to us that we could easily add one more “errand” into our itinerary.  Only a few minutes farther north from the Augusta…

Looking for a new place to go birding? We’ve got just the place for you. It’s called the Perham Stream Birding Trail, and it’s located in Madrid, Maine.

For those who may be a little rusty…

We’ve been serenaded most mornings this week by a loud, whistled “Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody”—the sweet sound of a white-throated sparrow tuning up the song that he will soon be singing…

Reading the rare bird sightings here in Maine in the past week could make you think you were in the southern U.S.. Summer tanager at a Portland cemetery. Another in the same Cape Elizabeth park…

Domestic abuse research and reporting often focus on physical violence. But this narrow frame may be misleading. Between 60% and 80% of domestic abuse survivors seeking outside supports (i.e.,…

The early April snowstorm left most surfaces, even a week later, with several inches of snow. But the rugby field on the Bowdoin College campus in Brunswick, where we went to watch our son play on…

There is something elemental about a solar eclipse that, for many people, causes an emotional response—a reckoning, perhaps, with the knowledge that we are tiny parts of a vast universe. That a…

A mellow “tu-tu-tu” echoing across the mudflats at low tide. The smell of salt and fragrant pine and spruce in the air. The spring sun trying valiantly to warm the still nippy morning air.

…

I’ve got another shout out for the Boomers out there this week. Cast your memory back to your teen years at the beach with your friends. What do you hear? The rhythmic sound of the ocean waves,…

What’s your favorite sign of spring? Is it that first crocus pushing up through the last of the melting snow? Maybe it’s the gradually but refreshingly longer days.

For us, one of the most…

On this morning’s walk around the neighborhood with our little dog, Loki, it was as if spring had soared in overnight. From every single yard, we heard the “pip-pip-pip” calls or the sweet “…